Major Dale and Aunt Winnie listened without much enthusiasm. Aunt Winnie was worried about Dorothy, who showed so little inclination to enter the whirl of society in North Birchland. She had looked forward with much pleasure to presenting her niece to her social world.
But Dorothy had little love for the society life of North Birchland. She loved her cousins and her small brothers, and seemed perfectly happy and contented in her home life, and attending to the small charities connected with the town. She seemed to prefer a hospital to a house party, a romp with the boys to a fashionable dance, and she bubbled with glee in the company of Tavia, ignoring the girls of the first families in her neighborhood.
“Your trip to New York, daughter,” began Major Dale, slily smiling at Aunt Winnie, “will be your debut, so to speak, in the world.”
Dorothy answered nothing, but continued to smooth away the hair from Roger’s brow.
“What are you thinking of?” her father asked musingly, not having received an answer to his first remark.
“Oh, nothing in particular,” sighed Dorothy, “except that I don’t see why I should make a debut anywhere. I don’t want to meet the world,—that is, socially. I want to know people for themselves, not for what they’re worth financially or because of the entertaining they do. I just like to know people—and poorer people best of all. They are interesting and real.”
“As are persons of wealth and social position,” answered Aunt Winnie, gently.
“I’m going to be a soldier, like father,” said Joe, “and Dorothy can nurse me when I fall in battle.”
“Me, too,” chirped little Roger, “I want to be a soldier and limp like father!”
“Oh, boys!” cried Dorothy, in horror, “you’ll never, never be trained for war.”